Today's walk report: 062613

This is so hot...

As summer settles in my walk time becomes more and more dependent on outside temperature than hour of the day. I prefer to walk when the thermometer reads 85º F (29.4º C) or less. I would much rather walk in a torrential downpour than in 100º + weather. I live in the San Fernando Valley (you know like, Encino, the Galleria, it's so bitchen) and it gets really hot here. I'm actually a few miles north west of Encino--but we pretty much share the same heat. It's not like Phoenix, Arizona hot but it can be pretty miserable. Triple digits will be common. 115º+ is not unheard of.

The only really positive thing I can say about this kind of weather and how it effects my walks is, waiting for cooler climes gets me out at the right time to catch some nice sunsets. Temps can stay way up there well into October and as we progress into fall the setting sun is often quite spectacular.

Today I walked out the door about 7:15 PM or 89.6º F. I turned the A/C on before I left and really appreciated it when I got home. Sunset today was no more than an orange glow behind the Santa Susana Mountains so no pics but I thought I'd post some from last year instead.

This is kind of random, I'm really just hoping to get this done rather quickly tonight.

That's a peregrine falcon in the tree there.  That's a rare bird in these parts.

Usually it's a pair of crows in this location. Trust me, the other one was nearby. I would see these same two crows everyday at sunset.

See? Would I lie to you?

Sometimes I'm already heading home. I often have 2nd thoughts about not having waited out the sunset from up on the hill but then I had special responsibilities at home which took precedence last year. Tonight I had a vivid recollection of my mother passing away the last km of my walk--almost a tunnel vision movie playing out in front of me. I'm coming up on 4 months since she left, some of the memory could fade a bit faster if it would. This is very close to where I was when that happened today.

 If the sunset is lighting up the sky in a big way I often shoot the other direction for shots I call, the other side of sunset (in other words, east.)

Panorama shot silhouetting the Santa Susana Mountains.

The Warner Center, Woodland Hills, CA.

Many times there have been wonderful sunsets and I don't have the best choice of lenses. This shot 70mm and was a 16:9 crop from 3:2.

That "texture" you see in the clouds remains consistent across multiple image over the course of about 15 minutes. I have to assume it was winds, or perhaps some crazy virga effect. I saw it too so it wasn't my camera. This shot was taken 100613.

 
 Want a closer look? Here you go...

Now let's look north, 8 minutes later...

A week earlier... I wonder what the bird on the barbed wire is thinking. I see a lot of animals watching the sunset and just have to believe there's something going on. Some magic.

Today's walk report: 050713

I don't usually bring a DSLR on school days but I did today. One reason was to see if I could capture an image if the traffic problem at the intersection I tried to describe yesterday. The other reason was I thought I might catch a nice sunset. Well, sunsets are always nice aren't they? But you know what I mean--photographically nice, as in special. The traffic thing is a Monday deal for the most part so that didn't happen. I'm not quite sure what it is about Mondays and intense rush hour traffic. Maybe it's a lot more people going to work because it looks really bad if you call in sick on a Monday? Right? It looks like you might have a problem. So people struggle through and perhaps give some indication of how crappy they feel yet what hard workers they really are so ultimately the boss shows enough sympathy that they feel they can take off on Tuesday. I don't know. I'm merely speculating, for all I know on Tuesdays everybody goes to the gym after work. Anyway, on to the walk...

This could very well be my alternate gig for the walk. I was a pretty serious cyclist on and off over many years of my life. I will, in fact, start riding night rides once again once school lets out in the summer. For the most part the campus is deserted and I have a route which is relatively safe. I tried this a few times last year but last year I was taking care of my mother and I don't think she was particularly excited about seeing her son head out on a bike in the evening. I had a great sense of responsibility to my mom too so this night ride thing was a rare exception to that responsibility. For those people stumbling into me here, my mother passed away at the age of 90 here at the house where I grew up. This Valley, a place I vowed 27 years ago never to return to except to visit, has once again become where I live. Life has it's little unexpected surprises, doesn't it?

Riding in a pack really helps control automotive traffic to the rear.

I added about 1.5 km to the walk by heading up to the campus cross country course and walking some of that. I ran this course in High School. Miserable sport--cross country running. Just awful. This is the view off toward the music and theater arts buildings. The main theater has been under reconstruction for over 2 years now and was supposed to re-open last fall. It's behind the green fenced off area on the right of the image. The parking lot is covered with solar panels which was a pretty early adoption for that sort of tech. I guess the school had funding to get stuff done back then.

These are the "switchbacks" on the CC course. They start about 1 mile into a H.S. race right after you go up "Hernia Hill." The other part of the course which had a name was the hill marking the final 550 or so yards of a race. It was called, "Puke's Peak" and rightly so.

Finally, a panorama of the sunset. When I started the walk that cloud layer out there wasn't so dense. That sucked up the end of the setting sun. Still it was a wonderful walk on a beautiful day.

Bye bye 2011. Nice knowing ya.

The last sunset of 2011, San Fernando Valley, CA.